


Generations

by Maple



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Gen, Methos lies a lot, Secrets, bystander fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-08
Updated: 2011-08-08
Packaged: 2017-10-22 09:38:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/236655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maple/pseuds/Maple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A newspaper man wants to talk to an old Immortal. He finds Adam Pierson instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Generations

It happened just by a glance. The right moment, the right place, the right second to people-watch those around him. Archibald Newhart was stunned for a moment, which was in itself an amazing thing since Newhart had seen decade’s worth of stunning moments.

There in front of him, the young man at the next café table had given himself a nasty paper cut. He’d instantly dropped his hand in his lap, but Newhart’s angle had allowed him to see the tiny spark anyway. The smallest of wounds and yet so telling.

Newhart gave his companion-bodyguard -friend Jim a nod, and a signal, and the man moved smoothly forward to do what he did best.

Newhart waited until Jim had engaged the man. The man’s expression ran smoothly from polite to baffled to concern to something hard, and Newhart knew he had the man. A very real threat from a representative of the very real and very powerful news magazine kingpin, and any Immortal would usually go along for at least a conversation. Especially since Newhart didn’t ask that they disarm.

He left his table and started for his suite. It wasn’t a conversation to have at a hotel café table.

Jim would shuttle the young man upstairs.

It had been over fifty years since Newhart had first learned of Immortals. He’d been in the Pacific as a young man, working for the Seabees since he hadn’t been up to standard. He’d seen things. Learned things.

Once he’d returned home and fallen into his career, eventually ending up managing and then owning several newspapers and magazines, he’d let the existence of the Immortals idle. But once he had the power, and the money behind him, he’d spent years trying to find them.

He’d persuaded a few to talk to him, but they were all young ones. The oldest had been slightly over a hundred. The age of his grandfather, if his grandfather were still alive, and he’d held no mysteries that Newhart hadn’t heard before. No. He longed to talk with the oldest ones. The ones who had seen the world rise and fall, change again and again. He wanted to know the truths and the secrets.

Newhart entered his suite and sat on the couch, waiting.

A minute later, Jim escorted the young man in. He was dressed in the common dark coat and he looked wary. He was in his late twenties, Newhart estimated, but he knew that appearances deceived in this matter.

“Please sit,” he said.

The young man did, but he sat in one of the hard-backed chairs, poised to flee or fight.

Newhart knew that his threat to reveal the presence of Immortality to the world was toothless. The last thing he wanted was to endanger these time travelers. He only wanted to know more, to glean from them whatever understanding of the world they had. What marvels they had seen. His curiosity was insatiable. But the young man would only see a well-placed, powerful man and would fear enough to at least sit down for a conversation. .

Newhart regretted the charade, but he’d tried talking to immortals without the threat behind him and they’d shrugged him off, vanished into the shadows. They were a closed-mouthed lot.

“You know who I am?” he asked.

“Yes. Archibald Newhart. You run a bunch of magazines.” The young man had a pleasant English accent.

“And you are?”

He hesitated, but then spoke. “Adam Pierson.”

Newhart gave Jim a slight nod and Jim vanished into the other room. With a name and the resources at his disposal, he would soon know who this man was.

“I know what you are.”

Adam didn’t respond. He stared steadily at Newhart and Newhart hoped that perhaps this calmness came from an eons long temperance against danger.

“How old are you?”

Adam shrugged. “Thirty five.”

“You look a little young for that.”

“Stress adds ten years to your life.” The words were flippant, but the tone was not.

“I just want to talk. I’m curious. Interested. As you can see, I’ve lived a long life myself. Seen much, done even more.”

“Good conversations don’t usually start with threats,” Adam said.

“You’d never have even started the conversation without it,” Newhart said mildly.

Jim returned from the other room was a bundle of papers which he handed over. Newhart looked at them and his heart sank. Denied again. Adam had been telling the truth. He’d died within the decade. This Immortal was less interesting than the general public.

“Told you,” Adam said with a smirk. He must have guessed what the papers told.

Newhart put the papers aside and considered the young man before him. He was running out of time. He was old now, and wouldn’t live forever. He decided to be forthright. “I do only want to talk. Even with your short life, you must have seen enough things to understand. You must have met those like you who are older. Two hundred years. Five hundred.” His voice had taken on a reverential tone. “A thousand. Can you imagine it? All that knowledge? Wisdom?”

Adam looked considering. “If you say so.”

“You must have met someone older by now. Someone had to train you.”

“Just about everyone is older,” Adam said blandly. “Even you.” He paused and reconsidered. “You could have spoken with my teacher. He was old. But he’s dead now.”

Newhart blinked.

Adam saw his reaction and continued. “You must know about that part of it.”

Newhart nodded. It sounded barbaric. It was a facet of the secret that he had never reconciled in his own mind. That they were all trying to kill each other. The thought of it roiled his conscious. It reminded him of his own nightmares, remembered from a lifetime ago. “Just go,” he said, and waved Adam away.

Jim moved to facilitate Adam’s leave, and Adam moved placidly. He stopped at the door as Jim escorted him out. “I don’t think the old ones would tell you anything you’d want to hear,” he advised.

His words lingered in the suite long after he was gone.


End file.
